Princess of Asturias Awards for 'Star Wars' and 'Untouchables' soundtrack composers

OSCAR-WINNING film greats John Williams and Ennio Morricone have been confirmed as recipients of this year's Princess of Asturias Award in the Arts category – and even if their names do not immediately ring a bell, their tunes will certainly be familiar.

Williams, 88, who was born in Floral Park, New York, composed the soundtracks to almost every single one of Steven Spielberg's productions, and his works are instantly recognisable: The theme music for Jaws, Indiana Jones, ET, Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List, among numerous others.

These others include such box-office smashes as the Star Wars, Superman and Harry Potter series of films – in fact, the website Cinemania has opened a straw poll for fans to vote on their favourites of 50 of his tracks, which only represent a tiny percentage of his life's work.

Anyone who is addicted to westerns will definitely have heard Ennio Morricone's works, which include the soundtracks for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and the Italian production C'era una Volta il West ('Once Upon a Time in the West', in English).

Gangster films also carried Morricone's music, including The Untouchables, Once Upon a Time in America and The Hateful Eight, which won him an Oscar in 2016 – nine years after earning a 'lifetime achievement' Oscar after five nominations and no prizes.

The Italian, 92, also created the tunes for classics such as Cinema Paradiso and The Mission.

Morricone's and Williams' prize is the second of Spain's answer to the Nobels to be confirmed for 2020, after a recent announcement that workers in the national health system would received the Concordance Award for their punishing, exhausting and excellent work on the front line during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Previous Prince or Princess of Asturias Awards for high-ranking names in the international film industry have included Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese and Michael Haneke.

From the first-ever ceremony in 1981 until 2013 inclusive, the prizes were known as the 'Prince of Asturias Awards' after Crown Prince Felipe; but when he became King Felipe VI upon the abdication of his father, Juan Carlos I, in 2014, the name changed to 'Princess', after the eldest of the current reigning monarch's two daughters – Leonor, aged 14, who is now direct heir to the throne.

She presented these herself last year for the first time ever, then aged 13, making her début speech as a Royal – the first one she had written herself.

The above photographs (from Wikimedia Commons) show John Williams (left) in 2006, and Ennio Morricone (right) in 2012.